The increased availability of the LSI Nytro MegaRAID product family coincides with a growing data deluge that is challenging data center managers to reassess ways to balance application performance, storage and data protection requirements in the most cost-effective way possible.

Broad compatibility with existing infrastructure through use of LSI SAS and MegaRAID drivers featuring extensive operating system and management support

“Our worldwide Channel partners are seeing pent-up demand for affordable application acceleration solutions given the daunting amount of data stressing the capacity and data protection capabilities of storage infrastructures,” said Brent Blanchard, director, worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. “With its unique integration of technology on a single card and sub-$2K price point, we believe the Nytro MegaRAID family is a game-changer that can make the dramatic application acceleration benefits of PCIe flash solutions accessible and economical for all types of datacenters.”

"Nytro MegaRAID cards provide the performance of flash with proven RAID data protection and intelligent caching software," said Ken Hostetler, director of product management with Silicon Mechanics. "This is an ideal solution for customer applications that require performance, capacity and reduced operational costs. The extensive compatibility and driver support out-of-the-box make it a solution I can offer to all my customers.”

Nytro MegaRAID cards feature a low-profile MD2 form factor, PCIe 3.0 compliance and support 6Gb/s SAS or SATA devices. The products are immediately available through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs.

The Nytro MegaRAID product family extends the comprehensive LSI portfolio of enterprise RAID and application acceleration storage solutions available in the channel, including MegaRAID and 3ware RAID controllers, host bus adapters, the Nytro WarpDrive™ and Nytro XD product family, and advanced software and data protection options.

Perhaps the proximity and design of the on-card flash makes it hella fast? Otherwise for $5K I could buy four Intel 720 200GB (eMLC), an LSI 8-port controller with CacheCade support, and the case/power/24 drive SAS backplane. On the other end, a 4-port controller + 100GB Intel 720 combo would be less than half the cost of a 8100-4i.